Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

OPERA

DeMain Promoted: Conductor John DeMain has been named artistic director and principal conductor of Opera Pacific by the board, effective immediately. He will be responsible for all musical decisions, from what operas the company will stage to which casts will sing them. Last year DeMain was appointed Opera Pacific’s music director through 2000 by then-general director Patrick L. Veitch, who left the company abruptly in December. His new contract will run for three years. Martin Hubbard will continue as interim executive director on a volunteer basis “for a finite period of time, but not one that is defined,” DeMain said Wednesday. “Martin will stay on well into establishing the financial stability the company needs.” Last week, Mitchell Krieger, artistic administrator at Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit, was named Opera Pacific’s director of operations. The company’s 1998-99 season opens in November at the Orange County Performing Arts Center with Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

POP/ROCK

Weiland Sentenced: “If you violate your parole, you’re going to jail. Please get your life together.” That was the edict from L.A. Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, as the latter pleaded guilty Wednesday to a felony heroin possession charge and was sentenced to three months in a Ventura County drug treatment facility. Fidler warned that Weiland would not be allowed to leave the Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center “for any reason,” adding: “He is not to go to work. He is not to make record albums and he is not to perform a concert.” Fidler also placed Weiland, 30, on three years’ probation, and ordered him to submit to regular drug tests and register as a narcotics user. Weiland, who has had three drug arrests since 1995, said after court that he was “very happy about the opportunity the judge has given me.” He had faced up to 40 months in County Jail.

TELEVISION

Shari Lewis Tribute: KCET-TV Channel 28 will remember the late ventriloquist and children’s TV star Shari Lewis with an Aug. 20 tribute featuring a brief video memorial put together by the puppeteer’s daughter, Mallory Tarcher. Included in the 10:30 p.m. show will be the last musical number Lewis recorded for KCET’s “The Charlie Horse Music Pizza,” which happened to be titled “Hello, Goodbye”; rare family photos and archival footage; and Lewis’ favorite “Charlie Horse” episode, “Drum Show.” A KCET spokeswoman noted that the tribute was aimed at “boomers with children,” not at children themselves. Lewis, who ceased production on her show in June after she was found to have uterine cancer, died Aug. 2 at age 65.